It had stopped raining, but the winds were still there. I decided to forgo the rain pants and no liners in the overpants. Just a liner in the jacket should keep me warm.
There was an actual Tim Horton's in town, so i went to that. I had hoped it was better than the cup-at-a-time machine at the gas station i had last night.
The coffee was still a little 'off' and they didn't have herb and garlic cream cheese. meh.
I headed east to my final destination. I had mentioned Boston to be my 3rd corner on this trip. Sure, i could have gone all the way to Maine, but there was nothing there i wanted to see. I made Boston the 3rd corner for this reason:
a big rock.
A symbolic rock really, but an important one i believe. Plymouth Rock. This is where the Mayflower landed. A birthplace of America if you will. A birthplace, not 'thee'
From the motel to this point was about 75miles. not far, but it was severe winds and rain at times. Enough so that my boots had saturated and my feet were soaked. I hate that squishy feeling when you walk around with water in boots.
It's a big rock. You can't touch it and it's 20+ feet away. yip.
meh. corner done
The Mayflower II was currently docked. I was going to back to take some pictures of it, when i noticed that Beast was taking a nap.
lazy bitch.
That's #4 on this trip. 3 times due to wind on the same side. heh.
The worse of it was that i had left my helmet on the right handle bar. It was pinned under the bar /mirror between the ground. I didn't notice any damage, but this hit and the fall it took in El Paso makes me think it'll be time to get a new helmet when i get back. No other real damage i could see. A bit of fuel leaked out, and my earphones were in a puddle. meh.
Still raining, I picked it back up and decided to just leave, forgetting about the Mayflower II.
The monument to the forefathers. I found it odd that it was tucked in an out of the way place, surrounded by houses with no major road to it.
It's massive. I would have assumed there would have been more traffic, etc. but alas, i was alone.
I felt like riding up right next to the statue, but thought it might be rude.
Plymouth rock is just south of Boston, and north to Boston i went. I followed the GPS mostly, but looking for a starbucks. I needed coffee. Even if there was no starbucks at the first 2 locations i looked at, i still had a riot driving around the city.I absolutely love the traffic here. Not horrible drivers, and the pace isn't totally insane, but still quick. The way the roads are designed are awesome. out of a tunnel, into an overpass, through a park roundabout, then back around...
if i had to get anywhere i would have hated it, but i was just riding around. I almost lost the bike at one point though... I rounded a corner and the front wheel (and back) drifted a few inches. then the front again over and over. Wow.
Real men drift on 2 wheels. heh.
I thought i had a flat in the front the way it was reacting, as the back held it's ground. So looking down i saw it was still looking ok. When i put my foot down, i realized what the problem was.
Slime.Due to all the rain we've had, and that the road i was on was tree covered, over time algae must have formed n that side of the road.. No wonder the traffic was bad up ahead. accident up ahead. i guess i wasn't the only one with slime difficulties.
I got to some starbucks finally and had my coffee.
found this right outside:
How cool is that?
I left Boston before the rush hour would set it and with soggy feet (which were starting to get a bit cold) I went in search of food along the route out of boston. Somehow the GPS took me off the main interstates and i wound up in Leominster, MA.
No clue how the gps figured that one out as it wasn't a pure interstate ride across. Still a nice ride though.
Leominster is the birthplace of johnny appleseed, so in his honor, i went to Friendly's!
ok, i couldn't find a regular diner anywhere, so this was the best i could come up with and it's a chain i hadn't gone to before.
I took the chicken melt thing. no clue what it was called, and everytime the waitress asked me for an upgrade i went for it. heh.
Chicken melt, with waffle (cross cut) fries, with the upgrades. heh.
Waffle fries were delicious, smothered in cheese and bacon, also came with ranch dressing and sour cream
Filled with cheese and bacon. Delicious. A bit too much Dijon for my tastes, but at least it had flavour and wasn't dull.
This came with a sundae. I took mint chocolate chip and asked what her favourite flavor was. Peanut butter swirl it was.
loved it. I asked for gummi bears and it came with whipped cream and a cherry. They don't use cool hwhip. heh
overall, i'd go back again... relatively pleased with that lunch
This was at 3:30 pm. GPS said about 8 hours ride from home. As it always takes longer, i figured i'd be home at about 1:30am. With the soaked feet, this was going to suck.
There's nothing more in the journal from that point on. I didn't stop very often after that, and the ride was from nice, to horrific. I don't think i had a chance to think about much during the ride.
Last picture on the camera. I was surrounded by dark clouds and wondered if it would start pouring.The rain was ever present, but it wasn't horrible. Light rains/ mist at most.
I stopped for coffee before dark and had to do something about the feet.
sitting there outside of Starbucks i took off my boots, and wrung out my socks. It's pretty bad when it makes a splashing sound on the ground. The wool socks (althought wet) still kept my feet warmish. If i would have changed socks, they would have become soaked in an instant, so why bother. This was in Keene, VT as i was still on the back roads.
Here on out was interstate riding.
At one point before it got full dark, the scenery was surreal.
wisps of clouds in the mountains which you'd ride through and it felt like you punched through a wall. clear as day on both sides of the small clouds but when you were in front, you couldn't see through well at all. was neat.
It got dark fairly fast and thought next time i pull over i should clean my visor as everything was blurry. Lifting up the visor i noticed everything seemed blurry. FOG!. it wasn't hard to see in most cases but there was a lot of construction on I-91 which i had to be cautious for. Why? All the signs that said "motorcycle danger" and "uneven lanes", "loose gravel"... those are not good signs... You can't see the uneven lanes (where one lane is higher than the other" at night.same with gravel, etc.
come to think of it, you can't see much at 85mph in the dark with fog.
I did get into a groove and didn't have many problems to speak of. A few uneven lanes made the bike flop around a few, but i just throttled out.
The interstates look straight on a map, but they aren't. when you're going through the mountains, it's a real coaster ride.
At some point i hit another starbucks right before it closed, and then needed gas along the NY/VT/Canada border. I needed a slight kick so i got a redbull. Meh. i don't get the crashes people say they have, and i don't think it does much in the way of affecting me.
The GPS wanted me to go all the way to cornwall to get back to Canada, and i saw a sign that said "Canada" 5 miles away. Why go all over when i'm right at the border?
Going through the border was normal. I start telling them the whole story and they wave me through. hah.
Good thing they didn't find the mexican in the trunk.
no troubles going through montreal, except there was a commotion on the highway i was on the onramp from.
police escort with a long line of rigs going fairly slow... 45 kph.
The truck sandwiched between the cop cars had a massive load. The single beam it carried was enormous. It must have been at least 10 feet tall, 10 feet wide and a foot and a half thick at least. it was about 3 tractor trailer lengths. When i could pass it, it took me a while. Enough time i could look at it. hah. neato
I finally had a regular tim horton's alongside the A-40 outside Montreal. Tasted like it should.
Since i didn't want to risk getting a speeding ticket, nor wiping out due to the heavy winds on the autoroute, i didn't go over 115kph all the way home.
It's odd that the majority of the winds stopped at the quebec/ontario border.
I made it home at 1:31am. heh. Off by one minute.
Time for vacation. I still want to work out some details, like what i wanted to do vs what i did, bike issues and the stats... like costs, miles, best/worse foods.. and a map of where i went.
No regrets on taking this trip. Not completely sure the journey is over... motorcycling is my therapy... i might need a bit more therapy. heh.
